My brinjals turned into eggplants

At last the white brinjals made their appearance. Excited by the pure white fruit, I was waiting eagerly for them to get bigger. But after three weeks, I had to accept that they were not going to get any bigger than large chicken eggs. What they lack in size they surely make up for in quantity, with the plants covered in the white fruit.

The granadilla is still ripening its fruit at an alarming rate. This makes the pathway behind the cottage a no-go zone unless you have an umbrella to protect yourself from dropping fruit. There is a constant threat from a height of 6 metres or more.

Grenadillas are very versatile. They can be used in sweet and savoury dishes or just eaten as-is with a spoon.

The first tomatoes are ripening and we could harvest the first picking of what looks like a healthy season of tomatoes. The first ones to ripen are red. Now I am waiting for the green, yellow, black and orange tomatoes I planted. Perhaps my garden has more surprises installed for me with additional varieties that I did not sow.

My dilemma now is, can I still call my white brinjals, brinjals or do I call them eggplants.

More than a sparrow in a teacup

The Towerwater garden has become home to a range of birds. It is visited by ever more species. Different birds seem to have claimed certain parts of the garden as their territory.

The sparrow in the teacup

The Olive thrush pair has claimed the rosarium as theirs. One can see them moving up and down the rosarium. Pecking away and scratching at fallen leaves, they search for tasty earthworms and odd insects and hopefully, some unwanted slugs.

Olive thrush

The Cape robin-chat pair has claimed the herbaceous border at the bottom of the lawn as theirs. One can see them hopping around in the shadows looking for invertebrates to eat. I am a bit concerned that their diet includes small frogs and lizards. These are very welcome in our garden. I have to trust that nature will take care of the natural balance.

Cape robin-chat

The Cape bulbuls have claimed the orchard as theirs. They are the first to be heard in the morning where a bedroom window overlooks the orchard. Their diet includes fruit and that explains their choice of location in the garden. I should be concerned about this. Although they destroy some fruit, it is not enough to ban them from the garden. Their acrobatic insect catching in mid-flight is quite something to see.

Cape bulbul

The Cape white-eyes roam the garden in their little flock. Rushing up and down the rosarium like a group of naughty children, eating insects from the roses. They also enjoy fruit and figs. Choice fruit can disappear overnight if one does not pick them early in the morning before they discover them.

Cape bulbul

The resident Cape wagtails roam the lawns and stone stoeps. Here they feast on insects while occasionally cleaning the decorative mouldings around the doors and windows. Last year, they built their nest in an outside room from where the bottled gas supplies the kitchen. We tried to use the room as little as possible so as not to disturb them. But after a cat discovered them, they abandoned the nest. The cat’s claw scratch-marks in the green paint of the slatted-wooden door provided the evidence of what had happened. 

Double-collared sunbird

The Southern Double-Collared sunbirds are favouring the hibiscus flowers at the moment. But they have quite a selection of flowers to choose from for nectar in competition with the bees.

Double-collared sunbird on the hibiscus

The pair of laughing doves tend to spend their time in the fiddlewood tree. They appear to find food under the oak trees where they nervously walk about.

Laughing dove

We have three neighbourhood cats that come to the garden to hunt the birds. We love cats but prefer to create a safe haven for birds. They provide a life of song and activity that’s beneficial to the garden. After the death of our cat, Sugar, at the age of 16 many years ago, we never got a cat again.  Sugar was a mouser and not a birder.

Twice over the holiday season I walked out in the morning to find feathers on the lawn. A clear sign that a bird had been caught by a cat. The feathers were those of laughing doves. It must be due to their slower get-away that they always seem to fall prey to neighbouring predatory cats.

Cape robin-chat

It makes me sad that I cannot stop the cats from catching the birds in the Towerwater garden. But for the cats it must seem like a delicatessen.

Cape weaver cleaning the hibiscus of its leaves

The Cape weaver started building a nest in one of the oaks. This, after breaking off the leaves of nearly half of the branches, leaving the oak tree looking like half of it was still in winter. When that nest was rejected by the female, he abandoned the oak tree and started clearing the hibiscus of leaves. That nest was also rejected and is now hanging in the herbaceous border looking very sad in the half-cleaned hibiscus. It should be obvious why the weaver is not a welcome visitor to the Towerwater garden.

The Bokmakierie shrike that made his home in the orchard a year ago did not return, but I still hear his call in the area.

I hear the pair of Turtle doves clumsily moving around in the wild fig tree. Cooing away in the thick branches, they find shelter against the summer heat.

Some mornings, I find the rock pigeons sitting on the roof of the main house looking out of place, pretending the roof is a temporary rock ledge.

Double-collared sunbird

The sweet song of the Cape canary adds to the orchestra of bird sounds in the garden. But they seem to visit the garden instead of taking up residence. I appreciate their vocal visits. Sometimes one cannot help but keep quiet and marvel at the beautiful sounds these feathered friends introduce to the garden.

Some surprise visits over the holiday season included the Red-faced mouse-birds. They are not particularly welcome in the garden because they can really destroy fruit. Their little red masks make them look like thieves or bandits to me.

A pair of Hoopoes popped in for a brief visit. We also had a few sightings of a pair of African Paradise flycatchers as they roamed the garden for a few days.

Cape robin-chat

The three Hadedas seem to be a lot more relaxed. Earlier when I found them on the lawn, they would fly away filling the air with their loud shrieks. But lately, they just walk up the steps from the lawn to the rosarium to find some juicy earthworms in the well composted soil, not so much as giving me a second look.

They live across the road on the canal side of the garden in tall blue-gum trees. There they share the trees with a flock of Guinea fowl that comes to roost. I don’t think they actually sleep. They sound like a lot of creaky bedsprings until the early hours of the morning.

Snake stuck on a wire by the Fiscal shrike

Grasshopper stuck on a wire by the Fiscal shrike

The Fiscal shrike comes to the garden sometimes but has given up residency since the Cape bulbuls moved-in. I still find his macabre display of spiked birds, snakes and insects on the razor wire fences along the road.

Swallows

In summer, the path in the rosarium becomes a danger-zone when the Barn swallows start protecting their nest under the bridge over the canal on the northern border of the garden.

The Double-collared sunbird investigating the teacup deli

The Cape sparrows that made their messy nest in the oak tree enjoyed the teacup bird-feeder that I hanged in the tree. They could not believe their eyes when they discovered the new food source. They were there so often that the sunbird came to investigate what was going on. When the seeds in the cup were finished, I filled it with water to benefit more birds than just the sparrow-in-the-teacup, on our hot summer days.

The male Cape sparrow

The big oak on the lawn becomes a gathering point for all the birds before they fly off to their nests or branches for the night. Where we are eating or relaxing under the tree, it is as if our residential birds come and bid us goodnight and thank me for scaring the cat away.

Vegetables in season

With the summer vegetable garden in full swing, our meals are being dictated by what is available from the morning’s harvest. Where possible, we prefer to leave the vegetables on the plant or in the soil and only harvest as we prepare a meal. Doing so improves the taste and also saves us the trouble of finding storage space.

After assessing the available vegetables, the meal planning will start. This forces me to be creative with my recipes. I cannot find a recipe and look for ingredients. I find the ingredients and look for recipes.

The vegetable garden reduces our carbon footprint. More local you cannot get. We hardly have to break a sweat to collect the vegetables for our meals, what to say of using petrol.

White brinjals on the left and purple brinjals on the right

And our vegetables do taste the better for it. We believe them to be healthier than supermarket vegetables that have been chemically fertilised, sprayed with pesticides and treated to stay fresher for longer.

Growing our own vegetables keeps me grounded. As a cook/chef, I enjoy cooking my own vegetables. I can plan my meals well in advance, when I put the first seed in the soil.

'Boerpampoen' pumpkin

Purple and brown onions

When we eat vegetables at Towerwater, it is the vegetables available on the day and therefore always, vegetables in season.

A passion for Grenadillas

The grenadilla vine has draped itself up high in a neighbour’s overhanging tree. The strings of green bauble-like fruit gave the garden a very Christmassy feel over the holidays. Time spent in the vegetable garden is now punctuated by thuds coming from the herbaceous border, as the ripe grenadillas drop.

Of all the instructions of how to plant, water, prune and harvest your grenadilla fruit, I only managed the planting and watering correctly. I did try to confine it to its trellis. But on arrival home one weekend we noticed that the grenadilla had discovered the tree next door. It had started to climb from its trellis into the tree.

I decided that I cannot control everything. Looking at the neat rows of beans, carrots, brinjals and beetroot, I looked up into the tree where the grenadilla was passionately reaching new heights. I decided that giving the grenadilla its freedom would be like letting my gardening hair down, and why not.

On a sunny day I decided to set the grenadilla free and in the process I unwittingly created a danger zone of potential falling fruit. The first season was fairly quiet with a couple of fruit falling down. But this season it is crazy, with about 20 to 30 fruit coming down on a daily basis.

Picking is out of the question. The grenadillas are hanging about 8 meters high, up in the tree. One can only wait for the ripe fruit to drop. Luckily they have tough skins and only one or two that fall on the stone path behind the cottage tend to burst open.

Pruning will be a problem. As for harvesting, I have to leave it to the grenadilla to decide when it is going to let go of the purple fruit.

Grenadilla liqueur in the making

With a kitchen where every hollow container is now filled with grenadillas, it is open season for recipes that call for them. And even some that do not call for grenadillas but could possibly still get some.

Grenadillas contains antioxidants, vitamins A and C, riboflavin, niacin, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, fibre, and protein. All the nutrient, mineral, and vitamin content of the grenadilla make it a worthy addition to any diet.

Some of the benefits include the ability to prevent cancerous growth, stimulate digestion, boost immune function, improve eyesight, increase skin health, lower blood pressure and boost circulation. It apparently also reduces signs of premature aging, lessens inflammation, improves sleeping habits, and eliminates asthma.

Grenadilla ice cubes

I use them in salad dressings, sauces, freeze them and make liqueur with them.  I discover new ways of using grenadillas on a weekly basis. Sometimes I simply scoop the pulp and pips out to enjoy the sweetness of this strange fruit. More often, I am surprised with a very tart experience because I have not discovered how to judge the sweetness of a grenadilla by appearance.

Even though we are over-run by grenadillas, we have not lost our passion for them yet. There remain many ways of preparing and eating grenadillas to explore and discover.

Klein Karoo culture

When trying to describe our outdoor living and eating culture in the Klein Karoo, we tend to use familiar climatic and cultural descriptions that will help people understand what it is like. We sell ourselves short by comparing it with the Mediterranean.

White gable detail against a Klein Karoo sky

We have our own unique climate, people, food, architecture and wine. But still we tend to embrace foreign names and concepts, as if they might be superior to what we have. Why do we think that translating true vernacular farm names into French or English will make it more marketable? The Langeberg becomes ‘Long Mountain’ and in doing so, loses all the charm and character captured in the descriptive Afrikaans name. Our rivers change into ‘creeks’ and speak of a foreign topography, as foreign as the new names we introduce to our landscape.

We need to embrace our uniqueness. Tourists want to experience it because it is a-one-of- a-kind in the world.

Throughout summer, the Towerwater garden becomes an outdoor room. With outdoor dining and lounging; and the sun is captured in the solar lamps that light up the oak tree as a chandelier in the evenings.

In the shade of the oak we share meals and conversations with friends and family by day, and with homemade ingredients, cocktails and snacks in the early evenings where it is stays light till late.

Klein Karoo summers are a wonderful time to be in the garden. It is a time to enjoy all the garden produce from preserves and liqueurs to sorbets and other fare.

Springbok 'rugstring' with fresh garden herbs and vegetables. True Klein Karoo fare

The cool dark house remains a sanctuary to escape from the heat. But the garden will always be our space of choice in summer.

The Karoo soil adds to the inherent goodness of the food and wine produced in the valley. Sitting in the garden, you can take in the sun and taste the terroir in a crisp Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc. These are accompanied with refreshing salads produced by the same soil and in our garden.

Mediterranean?  I don’t think so. This is uniquely and proudly a Klein Karoo culture.

On the first day of Christmas

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree”. There was no partridge in the pear tree at Towerwater on Christmas morning, just a Cape bulbul and a healthy crop of pears.

Christmas is a magical time everywhere, and we love celebrating it at Towerwater with family and friends. We woke up to a house filled with baubles, bells and a baobab tree full of angels. Our friend Carol was visiting over Christmas and brought her Baobab tree full of angels along. That is how we ended up with two Christmas trees in the house.

Christmas morning rushed into the house with rays of bright sunshine and the rich smell of fruit mince pies. These aromas came from the kitchen where Carol was baking an oven full of mince pies. The mince pies were made using her grandmother’s pastry recipe going back at least a century, and as lovers of tradition, that made Christmas breakfast with Carol even more special.

We decided to enjoy this treat with some Christmas tea from the Marriage tea emporium in Paris.   Esprit de Noël (Christmas Spirit) is a black tea flavoured with mild Christmas spices, pieces of orange zest and vanilla. Our friends from Paris joined us in spirit, esprit de noël to be precise.

We were in for a treat with the homemade mince pies. They tasted the way mince pies were intended to taste. We will most likely never be able to go back to supermarket-bought mince pies. Carol generously shared her grandmother’s recipe with me, but I think it may be easier to invite her for Christmas with her mince pies.

On a sunny morning we were surrounded by the fragrance and flavours of fruit, spices and hot pastry while we relaxed into the day catching up with an old friend.

With Carol acting as sous-chef, lunch was soon cooking, steaming, baking and roasting into readiness. Our friends from Ligspel in the neighbouring Klaasvoogds Valley were our lunch guests. Lunch was a celebration of friends and their deliciously prepared dishes.

Photo - Susan Cashin

Lunch turned into a celebration of tradition and new experiences. The dessert menu got underway with Carol’s traditional Christmas pudding blazing its way onto the lunch table, accompanied by her homemade brandy butter for good measure. I just love Christmas pudding, cake and mince pies. Perhaps it is the spices and fruit soaked in brandy that really gets me into the spirit of Christmas.

Susan was supposed to make trifle but Susan never trifles with dessert and produced a piece de resistance instead.

My disappointment of not having trifle for Christmas was replaced with sheer admiration for the Strawberry Frasier that Susan presented instead. The Frasier is a decadent creation with cream and fresh strawberries with layers of almond genoise that has been soaked in a strawberry punch.

On the first day of Christmas we celebrated tradition and friendship with a 9 hour lunch in true Towerwater fashion.